Hereafter
by celestial.mxge
Summary: What if Wendy didn't go to Tenrou Island?


**This is something I'm not used to writing, aha. Not having Lucy and Natsu as the main characters is going to be a bit of a challenge for me, so wish me luck!**

 **Anyway, this plot may have been done before. I saw around tumblr that people wanted to see a fic where Wendy didn't go to Tenrou and aged those seven years, so I decided to write one myself! It may not be your cup of tea, or all that good, to be honest, but I wanted to give it a shot, so I hope you like it!**

 **This first chapter is more of a prologue to set up the story than anything else.**

 **Please leave reviews! Reading them always makes me so happy!**

 **Also, I'm still working on A Dragon's Claw and The Most Precious Thing; thank you all for being so very patient with me. I've just had a lot going on. Even right now, I should be doing my homework instead of writing. If you have any questions you want to ask me, feel free to ask me on tumblr (celestixl-mxge)**

* * *

Everyone in Fairy Tail heard about Tenrou Island disappearing off the map completely. Wendy Marvell stood in the middle of the guild hall like a deer in headlights, wondering why _she_ , of all people, was the last to know.

Her entire _team_ \- Natsu, Lucy, Erza, Gray, and even Happy - were all on that island. Her friends...They were all said to be dead.

Every eye was on the bluenette whose chest rose and fell rapidly. The room began to spin and blur behind the tears. Wendy shook her head. "No," she breathed, her voice cracking. "They-they can't...Not all of them. M-My friends."

"Wendy." Wendy looked down to see Carla reaching out to touch her leg. Wendy, not wanting any comfort whatsoever, turned away, darting straight behind the counter. "What on earth are you doing, child?" Carla asked, her voice soft and nothing like how stern it usually was.

Wendy didn't know what she was doing herself. Tears now streamed down her cheeks, hot and salty as a few escaped into her mouth. Her hands were shaking by the time she found what she was unconsciously looking for. She held the holder of the knife tightly in her small right hand and, in an instant, her long hair was falling at her feet.

"Wendy!" Carla tried to fly over to Wendy, but Macao stopped her, holding her back.

Wendy dropped the knife. Her hair now didn't even touch her shoulders. She thought cutting her hair might have made her losing all her friends like that seem like something her past self had to worry about, but the tears didn't stop coming. And, for a long time, she fell to her knees behind the counter and just cried.

Carla was beside her now, hugging her. Bisca came over and wrapped her arms around Wendy tightly, allowing her to cry. "Have some faith," Bisca whispered to her. "You never know; they might come back."

Wendy nodded once, but she didn't believe the words. She knew deep down that, if the island was completely blown off the map, it was likely that her friends were all gone, too. "Until then," Wendy said, sitting up. She wiped her eyes and frowned, staring hard at the green-haired mage in front of her. "Until then, I will become the most powerful sky dragon slayer I can. I won't sit around idly and be useless anymore." She shook her head, standing up.

"Wendy..." Bisca trailed off, her voice barely above a whisper.

Wendy clenched her hand into a fist, her nails digging into her palm. "I'm not going to be clumsy little Wendy anymore." Her vision began to blur again. "I'm all fired up now."

* * *

The first two years were the hardest for Wendy. For hours she would practice her sky dragon magic, trying to master every spell she remembered Grandeeney teaching her. However, because she was so young when Grandeeney disappeared, she didn't get a chance to learn any of the Sky Dragon Secret Arts. So she focused on her healing magic. She was, indeed, getting stronger, but Fairy Tail was getting weaker.

Macao was the guild master now, and, though Wendy would never say so to his face, he wasn't very good at his job. The guild was crumbling by the minute and going more and more bankrupt every day.

Wendy made it a point to keep her hair short. She never let it go past her shoulders in fear that having long hair would remind her of what she was like when she went on jobs with her team. Thinking about them still made her chest ache, but she no longer cried.

She sat atop a hill overlooking Magnolia, a book on healing magic in her lap and a book on dragons closed beside her. She had hoped to find out more about the sky dragon in hopes that it would help her learn some new spells. But she was still out of luck. It was starting to get colder as the sun began to set, the autumn breeze causing goosebumps to rise along Wendy's arms. Carla was sitting next to Wendy fast asleep. She had been doing everything in her power, too, to help Wendy become stronger and the bluenette was more than grateful.

Bisca became like a second mother to the girl. She always cared and worried about her, even though she was now seriously seeing Alzack and it was more than likely that the two would be getting married one day. And Wendy knew that once Bisca had a child of her own, she would no longer look out for Wendy like she did now.

After all, Wendy was fifteen now and she technically didn't need to be looked after anymore at all. She went on her own jobs and still lived in the dormitories of Fairy Tail. She tried to spend as little time as possible there, however, because all the rooms around hers were empty. _Erza, Cana, Juvia, Mirajane, and Lisanna..._ They were all gone. Those halls were quiet and lonely, and Wendy _hated_ them.

"Fairy Tail guild mark? Hah! So you're part of that sucky guild, are you?"

Wendy looked up from her book at the sound of a raspy voice in her ear. She hadn't even heard the boy approach. He was smirking and had spiky blond hair. He looked no older than Wendy and right beside him was a brown exceed. Wendy didn't say a word to him; she just narrowed her eyes. Carla stirred beside her.

"Hey, look, Sting-kun, she's got an exceed too. She must be one of Fairy Tail's dragon slayers too," the exceed said, pointing to Carla as she wiped at her eyes.

"Huh?" He craned his neck to look at Carla. "You're right. But I thought Natsu and Gajeel disappeared with Tenrou Island. Even that Laxus character is gone too, am I right?"

Wendy gritted her teeth at the mention of that island.

"There are four dragon slayers in Fairy Tail. You should know that, Sting."

"Tch," Sting clicked his tongue. "All I cared about was Natsu. And don't even pretend you cared about anyone other than Gajeel, Rogue."

A second boy a few inches taller came up beside Sting. He had long, black hair that covered one of his eyes and he had a green exceed dressed as a frog following closely after him. "You're Wendy," Rogue said. "The sky dragon slayer."

Wendy frowned, closing her book. "I am." She stood up, brushing dirt off of her dress. "Who are you two?"

"You haven't heard about us? We're the twin dragons of the Sabertooth guild," Sting said proudly, his smirk widening.

"Sting-kun here's the white dragon slayer," the brown exceed said with even more pride than his friend.

"And Rogue is the shadow dragon slayer!" The exceed dressed as a frog had a much higher pitched voice, but Wendy couldn't tell if it was male or female.

"We seem to be in the same boat," Sting continued before Wendy got the chance to say anything herself. "I mean, we all seem to be about the same age and, unlike Natsu and Gajeel, we were much younger when..." He cut himself off with a shake of the head. "Anyway, did you learn any of the Secret Arts from your dragon?"

"Why are you asking me this?" Wendy asked, taking a step away from them. She may have gotten stronger, but she couldn't fight two dragon slayers. And, besides, she mostly only knew healing magic aside from the simple roar and wing attacks.

"Because we can help each other out. Get stronger, I mean."

Wendy wasn't sure she trusted them at all. After losing her friends, she had a hard time opening up to or trusting anyone. She was a locked diary whose key was thrown to the bottom of the river now.

"Hold on a minute," Carla intervened. "How do you plan on working together when you're not a part of the same guild?"

"It's not like our guilds are enemies," the brown exceed said as if it were the most simple thing in the world.

"And if that can't sell ya," Sting added, "We can teach you how to channel your Dragon Force willingly."

Wendy blinked. She had never thought about using her Dragon Force before. She never had to; after all, her teammates were always the ones who did all the fighting when it came down to it. "You two...How can you know how to do that?" Wendy knew that Natsu didn't. Whenever it happened to him, it was always when he consumed too much power.

"Wendy," Carla scolded. "You don't know these people. What if you get hurt? And they're not from our guild."

Wendy smiled down at her best friend. "I'll be okay, Carla. And if anything goes wrong, I can take them both on myself."

"That's the spirit," Sting said with a wide grin.

* * *

Five years went by after that. Wendy grew to be twenty years old, Bisca and Alzack had a young daughter, Kinnana took Mirajane's bartender job, and Fairy Tail was the weakest guild in Fiore. The Sabertooth guild grew to be number one after an embarrassing defeat in the Grand Magic Games. Wendy had trained with Sting and Rogue for over a year after that time they met, but once Sabertooth started to get strong, both Sting and Rogue stopped coming by to meet with Wendy. If the bluenette wasn't bitter before, she most definitely was now.

She no longer shed any tears. Thinking of her friends she lost didn't tug at her heart anymore. In fact, hearing their names mentioned only made her body go numb.

That was until Reedus dropped off of his drawings on the floor and the smiling faces of Natsu, Lucy, Erza, and Gray stared up at her. Wendy was in some of these, smiling happily and laughing with her team. She leaned down and picked up the drawing. Natsu was carrying her on his shoulders, looking up at her as she laughed. The others were in the background, but they were all smiling and laughing, too. Even Gray was as Juvia clung herself onto his arm. Lucy was yelling something at Natsu who wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention and Erza was sitting at the bar eating a slice of strawberry cake. Happy was offering a fish to Carla and Mirajane was walking around with her tray of beers on the palm of her hand.

Tear drops stained the page before Wendy even realized that she was crying.

She pressed the paper to her chest, her hands and shoulders shaking as she cried. Bisca rushed over the second she saw, but she didn't try to comfort Wendy this time. Instead, she began to cry too. And, before Wendy knew it, the entire guild hall was full of the echoes of loud sobs.


End file.
